World: It Is Harder to Give

In the field of foreign aid, giving provokes grumbling. The U.S. has
learned this lesson through years of political argument at home and
criticism abroad. Now West Germany is discovering the Law of Painful
Generosity.

Prodded by the U.S., Bonn agreed to carry more of the West's
underdeveloped-areas burden about a year ago, when it set up a special
aid ministry under a former private-business consultant, Walter Scheel.
Since then, the West German government has provided or promised
$1,425.000,000 in assistance funds to 45 countries, mostly in Asia and
Africa, but also in Latin America. Most of Bonn's loans are in the...